Matplotlib – Command-line Unix ASCII-based charting / plotting tool

chartsgraphmatplotlibunix

Is there a good command-line UNIX charting / graphing / plotting tool out there? I'm looking for something that will plot xy points on an ASCII graph.

Just to clarify, I'm looking for something that will output a graph in ASCII (like ascii-art style), so I can use it over an interactive shell session without needing X.

Best Solution

Try gnuplot. It has very powerful graphing possibilities.

It can output to your terminal in the following way:

gnuplot> set terminal dumb
Terminal type set to 'dumb'
Options are 'feed 79 24'
gnuplot> plot sin(x)

   1 ++----------------**---------------+----**-----------+--------**-----++
     +                *+ *              +   *  *          +  sin(x) ****** +
 0.8 ++              *    *                *    *                *    *   ++
     |               *    *                *    *                *    *    |
 0.6 ++              *     *              *      *              *      *  ++
     *              *       *             *       *             *      *   |
 0.4 +*             *       *             *       *             *      *  ++
     |*            *        *            *        *            *        *  |
 0.2 +*            *        *            *        *            *        * ++
     | *          *          *          *          *          *          * |
   0 ++*          *          *          *          *          *          *++
     |  *         *           *         *           *         *           *|
-0.2 ++ *         *           *         *           *         *           *+
     |   *       *            *        *            *        *            *|
-0.4 ++  *       *            *        *            *        *            *+
     |   *      *              *      *              *      *              *
-0.6 ++  *      *              *      *              *      *             ++
     |    *     *               *     *               *    *               |
-0.8 ++    *   *                 *   *                *    *              ++
     +     *  *        +         *  *   +              *  *                +
  -1 ++-----**---------+----------**----+---------------**+---------------++
    -10               -5                0                 5                10
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